Monday, March 9, 2009

Kansas City - St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn issued the following statement today responding to President Barack Obama's Executive Order on Embryonic Stem Cell Research:

Statement on the President’s Order for Human Embryonic Stem Cell ResearchMost Reverend Robert W. FinnBishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph

President Barack Obama has kept another campaign promise today as he signed the executive order which will allow federal funds to be spent on destructive human embryonic stem cell research.

I join my voice to that of other Catholic leaders, and other men and women of good will, in denouncing this newest step by the President to eventually remove all legal protections for innocent, nascent human life.

The President boldly proclaimed that he was taking the politics out of science. Rather, it seems clear that he is only asserting “his politics” over life itself.

In the Fall of 2006, we proved in Missouri that if we teach the truth about human cloning and scientific experimentation with human embryos, more and more people will reject the pretense and false hope of this still unsuccessful research.

While breakthroughs continue to be documented in adult stem cell research, taxpayer money will now be siphoned into the coffers of medical researchers to fund projects so dubious that they would never waste their own money on them. These experiments on human embryos, while they have always remained legal, have never produced any medical benefits. The thing that differentiates human embryonic stem cell research from adult stem cell research is that, with embryonic experiments, there are no results. There are no cures. The great “hope” that was promised is an illusion.

Americans should urge the Congress to appropriate no money for such research. Missourians should urge their Missouri Legislature to quickly pass The Taxpayer Protection Amendment (SJR 17), to prevent Missouri tax-dollars from paying for these destructive experiments.